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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

HARRY WUEST

Another gentleman, Harry Wuest, who has been of more influence in-my life than even he would
suspect is the Band Director and Musical Instructor at Gateway College, formerly known as Lake City
Community College.

Harry is a musician of the absolute top quality, an excellent teacher, and I believe as good a saxophone
player as I have ever heard, and I have heard the best over my lifetime. Harry plays a fantastic sax and
he is seemingly so comfortable with it that some of it just had to be born in him.

Many years ago, about 1990, give or take a year or two, I went out to a band rehearsal at the Junior
College on the regular rehearsal night, which was always on Monday, and sat in with the swing band
that Harry had going at the College. I enjoyed doing that very much, and while swing music had not
been in my musical background to a great extent, (having been trained more or less as a classical
performer,) I discovered that I enjoyed it very, very much, and mostly due to the fact that Harry Wuest
knew exactly what he was doing, and how he wanted to get it done, and was in perfect control of how
we played. He would tolerate nothing but perfection, or as near as you can get to it with amateurs and
students, and we really established quite a reputation as a good swing band over the years.

The only thing I ever got a little bit annoyed about with Harry Wuest was the fact that when he talked
into a microphone he seemed to mumble, or without a microphone talk so softly that it was difficult to
hear him, and 1 have been known to call out during a rehearsal, “Would you please mumble a little
louder Harry?”

He continued to let me play trumpet in his band at the college until I was in my early 80’s, a period of
something between 15 and 20 years.

During that time, he produced some extremely outstanding musicians in his program at the college, and
some of those students of his went straight from the college into professional playing. For example, Matt
Johns went straight from the college to playing with the new Tommy Dorsey Band, and the new Glenn
Miller band, which is composed of musicians which are possibly a little higher quality than the original
Dorsey band members. There has been a lot of advancement in the playing of that type of music since
those days.

I understand that Harry is not in good health at the time I am trying to get this book in order, but I hope
he is still around in time enough to read at least this section of the book. He is a fine gentleman, and an
absolute fantastically accomplished musician, and a great teacher. Although I had been playing for over
60 years when I began in his band, I did indeed learn a whole lot from Harry Wuest, and I want to take
this opportunity to thank him.

I thought I had about finished writing this book when I wrote the above remarks about Harry Wuest.
After that, I did indeed finish the book, but 1 now find 1 must come back in and add this paragraph to it
before the book is published.

Today is August 9, 2012, and this morning’s Lake City Reporter carried an account of harry having
passed away yesterday, August 8, at age 90. Now we must go to the list of names at the back of this
book and sorrowfully place an asterisk in front of Harry’s name.

It is as if a very bright light just suddenly went out, and left me in the dark.

So long, Harry! The sad part is, I know there will be others.

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